1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to the analysis of metal failure, and specifically to combining automated visual aids with an expert system having a knowledge base of metal failure.
2. Background of the Invention
For many years the problems associated with metal failure in the industrial environment have been researched and documented. This knowledge is extensive and is mainly in the hands of metallurgical experts. The costs of repairing components due to metal failures is high. Expert systems have been employed in industrial plants, service companies, and medical institutions to diagnose problems or illnesses. Expert systems have not been used in conjunction with visual displays for metal failure analysis.
Metal failures are analyzed using metallurgical expertise and techniques. These metal failures may occur in components such as pumps, valves, turbine blades, gears, shafts, drives, and virtually any other mechanical structural or aerospace metallic component. Normally sections of pieces of the damaged component are sent to a metallurgist outside the plant site where the failure occurred. The metallurgist may be from an independent consulting firm or may be employed by the company where the failure occurred if the expense of a full-time expert can be justified. Even if a company has a full-time metallurgist, the metallurgist may be far from the emergency at hand, working out of a distant home office. Since metal analysis must be performed by the metallurgist in person, a great deal of time and expense are wasted either by shipping failed parts to the metallurgist or by transporting the expert to the failure site.
Normally these metal failure experts rely on private knowledge and past experiences to analyze the failed component rather than just chemical or physical evaluation procedures. These "intuitive" and knowledge based techniques are often performed in an apparently unsystematic fashion. This apparently unsystematic procedure is comparable to the question and answer routines physicians use in diagnosing a patient's illness. An "If-Then" type logic precedes actual physical or biological tests and can often be used to determine the exact cause of the problem or illness, and is used in conjunction with a visual examination. Subsequent testing is used for verification.
First, the metallurgist asks the maintenance staff questions pertaining to the material, location, and environment where the failure is concerned. Visual inspections may be performed. In metallurgical failure analysis, the appearance can often indicate the cause of a problem with a component, but this information has been unavailable until now to the personnel who routinely repair, replace, or inspect the component in question. From the appearance of the failed component the failure mechanisms can often be determined, or it may be determined that further testing is needed. Often these tests are performed as a means of verifying the mechanism before the root-cause is confirmed by the metallurgist. The tests may be non-destructive evaluations (ultrasonic, radiography, computer tomography, etc.); chemical tests (hydrogen, embrittlement, erosion/corrosion analysis; etc.) or physical tests (stress tests, fatigue testing, hardness testing, etc.). This process has not been well systematized for non-experts by the prior art because of lack of visual display providing correlation between observations and relevant conditions for isolating failure mechanisms.
Another object is to provide an expert system with relevant exemplary video displays correlated to both information gathering and solution presentation modes.
A further principal object of the present invention is to be able to use a visually aided expert system as an inanimate metallurgical consultant for determining the failure mechanisms and root-causes of the metal failure and deterioration.
Another important object is to provide an expert system for trouble-shooting metal failures which provides the equivalent of the human expertise employed by the metallurgical specialist, whose expertise would not be lost due to retirement, promotion, death or transfer.
Another paramount object of the invention is to provide visual aids depicting both a macroscopic and microscopic appearance of metal failures that are coordinated for display by an expert system program and which can be used by an operator in the system to find a failure mechanism and to conduct root cause analysis.
It is an object of the invention to provide a knowledge base housed in an expert system which would be constantly upgraded at appropriate intervals. A further paramount object of the invention is to assure that the knowledge contained in an expert system is easily transferable and can be applied at many different locations simultaneously.
It is also an object of the invention to provide an expert system for use in metal failure analysis which can provide immediate solutions whereby valuable time is conserved and corrective actions are implemented quickly at a time when obtaining this information is essential.